For a democratic and prosperous Pakistan; at peace with its neighbors and itself

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Millions Ceasing To Be Pakistani

In his oft-quoted speech of 11 August 1947, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah famously said, ‘Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus, and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.’ Nearly 70 years later, that ideal is not only further than ever from realisation, we may actually be in a period in which religious intolerance threatens to alienate millions of people, and possibly the nation’s very future.

In 1974, the Second Amendment to the Constitution declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims. In doing so, it relegated them to a position of second-class citizens. Gen Zia’s Ordinance XX outlawed Ahmadi practices, essentially rendering them enemies of the state by nature of their religious beliefs. As a result, the 2 to 5 million Ahmadis in Pakistan continue to endure harassment, arrest, and persecution with no hope of protection from the state.

The issue is larger than one of communalism. It gets to the very core of what it means to be Pakistani. If Pakistan is a land only for Muslims, and not only Muslims, but only the right kind of Muslims, what does that mean for the existence of those millions of Pakistanis who do not adhere to an approved religion? And once those millions of people living here have ceased to be Pakistanis, what can be the future of Pakistan?